The human body contains many body parts that are flexible, but prone to injury from overextension (e.g. hyperversion and hyperextension). One example is the fingers. Fingers can be flexed into a fist, but are prone to hyperextension if flexed in the opposite direction. Another example is the ankle. The ankle can be extended laterally, but is prone to hyperversion (e.g. sprained ankle). Hyperversion and hyperextension most often occur when a force is applied to the particular body parts such that these parts are bent beyond the typical range of motion.
With respect to fingers, hyperextension can occur while participating in many different activities. For instance, finger hyperextension may occur while participating in sports, particularly to soccer goalkeepers, baseball catchers, ice hockey goalies and snowboarding enthusiasts. It may also occur to workers participating in manual labor or industrial related jobs.
Protection against finger hyperextension has been investigated. U.S. Pat. No. 7,065,795, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, relates to a goalkeeper glove comprising a reinforcement on the outer hand part. The reinforcement, however, comprises a single flexible piece extending over the back of the hand and fingers. This single reinforcement, being flexible, is not rigid enough to effectively disperse a force over the back of the hand. Moreover, the single unit construction, if sufficiently rigid, would simply relocate the localized force from the base of the finger reinforcement spine to the single unit's edge near the wrist rather than disperse the force over the wrist to the larger forearm, a broad area.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,557,177; 6,990,689 and 7,320,145, herein incorporated by reference in their entirety, relate to soccer goalkeeper gloves comprising finger reinforcements only. Typically, these reinforcements exert pressure directly onto the back of the hand when fingers are extended and do not possess a mechanism to disperse the force from the fingers over a broader area.
With respect to the ankle, the ankle joint permits two types of pivotal movement of the talus or ankle bone about the leg bone, namely a generally up and down pivotal movement of the foot within the plane of the leg bone, commonly referred to as dorsiflexion and plantarflexion, and lateral side-to-side pivotal movement of the foot relative to the ankle, commonly referred to as inversion and eversion. As is well known, excessive inversion (“hyperinversion”) and excessive eversion (“hypereversion”) of the foot can damage the ligaments at the ankle joint and cause ankle sprain which is a painful and sometimes debilitating injury.
Protection against ankle hyperversion has been investigated. U.S. Pat. No. 6,503,218, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, relates to an in-the-shoe ankle brace for protecting ankle ligaments against injury resulting from hyperversion of the foot relative to the ankle. The brace comprises an ankle brace that wraps around the leg at the ankle and straps that old the brace in place. To resist hyperversion, the brace/strap design works countering the force of the hyperversion by pulling on the brace by the straps. The pulling force is concentrated on the strap rather than dispersed over a larger area.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,923,781, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, relates to a brace for supporting the ankle or foot of a wearer including at least four splints and housing layers. The splints are L-shaped and cover portions of the leg and foot. However, the splints are rigid and do not disperse the force over a larger area than the splint itself.
There exists, however, an ongoing and unmet need to provide reinforced support devices that provide greater dispersion of applied force/pressure exerted on body parts while preventing the body pans from overextension.